Robin’s letter gave me food for thought, although it was as well I wasn’t starving. Robin has always called things as he sees them and I knew he was right, I should dissociate from Percy and Niccolo immediately. Go to the ball on my own, spend time on the arm of the Direttore and have a good time. It’s not as though I haven’t done that many times before. I am known for being independent and somewhat risque in my preference for attending functions unescorted.
This most superb backstory for The Masked Ball has been posted on:
http://vvb32reads.blogspot.com/2010/04/charmed-circles-masked-ball-rsvp.html
I urge everyone to go to vvb32’s blog and see the complete post. Thanks velv, for getting into the spirit.
Rebecca Bingham takes up the flag and continues The Masked Ball:
Bacigalupo watched Sarina step beneath the overhanging branches of the large tree. His hand sketched a quick sign and the shadows deepened, as though a dark curtain had been drawn around the two figures, concealing them from view. Turning away, he unhurriedly walked to the fountain, where Parthenope awaited him. They exchanged a conspiratorial look.
I wrote to Robin and told him all, finishing with my love to the Lady Marion, his wife. I sent it by secret messenger and demanded the man wait for a reply and thankfully only a few days passed before I received a packet. That’s the advantage of speedy caravels and the best and most fleet Raji horses.
To hell in a hand-basket with everyone. I feel as if I’m in a vice, with Percy on one side and Niccolo on the other. Who can I believe? Niccolo who says his brother is evil? Or Percy who has, with the Lady Marguarite, been my friend since I took up residence in Veniche, but who hasn’t told me that Niccolo is his brother.
Niccolo sighed and lifted the decanter on my writing table to pour a wine, handing me a goblet and beginning to talk. At first all I could do was stare at his magnificent profile, the aquiline nose, the hair that he had cut fractionally but which was clean and touched his shoulders. ‘Lucia, I tell you this in the belief it will go no further than these walls and that if it does, I shall have to mesmer you. Or worse.’
Just a brief bit of housekeeping: The Stumpwork Robe has just secured another five star review on Amazon!
Now, however, The Masked Ball continues:
I, Lucia Brabante, was sitting at my desk, trying to pen more of my novel after Percy left. I was shaken by his vehemence and confused at the almost instantaneous reaction I had, which was to protect Ser de Fleury from one of my dearest friends. I chewed the goose quill. I am known as a writer of what they may call in other places, ‘penny dreadfuls’ and the women of Eirie lust after them and for one strange moment, I felt as if I had fallen into one of my own outrageous plots. Handsome men, dangerous assignations, women with heaving bosoms and so on – ah yes, this very moment in my life had it all and I sighed in confusion.
This is the next Patricia Sweet instalment of The Masked Ball. (Pat, Rebecca and myself are the joint authors of the official Masked Ball story) Pat runs the studio www.bopressminiaturebooks.com
To my most esteemed Friend and Mentor Samuel North or Della Nord as you are known by the Venichese, from one now calling himself Rodolfo West in Veniche:
We have had two entries in the Back-story competition of The Masked Ball. And I would encourage all subscribers to Mesmered and those of you who have responded to join us at The Masked Ball on May 1st, to BE BRAVE, BE FEARLESS and get your entry to me via my email address. THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE ENTRY PER PERSON THOUGH. You will have read Michael Keane’s entry and also Simon James Atkinson Turney’s entry and now we have a third. Barbara is a cartoonist, screenwriter and the author of creativebarbwire.wordpress.com and is one of the guests to the Ball and has entered her back-story which is below. She has also written a Part Two which will be on creativebarbwire in April and I urge all readers to visit and read the next instalment. I have a feeling that Barb is setting up a story here that will continue further than just parts one and two.
My friend Simon James Atkinson Turney, author of the successful Marius’s Mules and also Interregnum, has taken time out from penning his third book and looking forward to his first child in April, to take the role of a Visconte for the Ball. I hope you enjoy this piece from SJAT:
